Ignoring the activities of people around her, she put on a cover-up — similar to an apron — and began feeding her baby. Not with a bottle, but with the most perfect food made for babies — breast milk.

It’s acknowledged that some people might be intimidated by seeing a mother breastfeeding her baby.

Victoria Brown of Walstonburg, an international board certified lactation consultant, said woman expose more of their bodies wearing low-cut tops and bikinis than they do breastfeeding.

“It’s not indecent exposure to breastfeed,” she said.

In fact, North Carolina law allows women to breastfeed in public or private.

Brown, who has breastfed seven children and has been helping mothers with breastfeeding for 20 years, said most people are not aware when a mother is nursing.

The Surgeon General reported in 2011 a public opinion survey in 2001 found only 43 percent of adults believe women have the right to breastfeed in public.

Yet, since the beginning of humankind, breastfeeding infants and young children has been the norm.

With aggressive marketing of manufactured baby formula in the mid-20th century, mothers were encouraged to feed their young ones from a bottle. But starting in the 1970s, health advocates and agencies have progressively turned around and now recognize a mother’s milk as vital for at least the first six months of life.

The N.C. Breastfeeding Coalition was formed in 2005 to promote, protect and support breastfeeding as a normal activity. The Surgeon General and Healthy North Carolina 2020 encourage support for breastfeeding. The American Academy of Pediatrics lists a variety of benefits on its website, and recommends breastfeeding until babies are at least 12 months. The World Health Organization recommends two or more years.

Brown said she has noted an increased number of mothers who breastfeed, and do so in public.

“As people realize the benefits of breastfeeding,” Brown said, “more people are doing it.”

Mothers who breastfeed

Jones, of Southwood, nursed her 4-year-old daughter, Sage, for 19 months and now does so for Owen.

When she was pregnant with Sage, her neighbor Bridget Williamson, told her about Le Leche League meetings headed by Brown — Le Leche is a support group for breastfeeding mothers.

“I got to see some of the moms feeding their babies,” Jones said, “and the latch-on technique.”

The technique is one of the methods to help new mothers avoid breastfeeding problems. From there, mothers often become comfortable with their own way of nursing their babies.

Jones, a dietician, continued to attend meetings after Sage was weaned because she wanted to be a Le Leche League leader.

“I got the help, and I thought I would pass on the knowledge,” she said.

Her training and experience as a dietician moved her to want to breastfeed both of her children, and her husband John was supportive, Jones said.

She cites better brain development — especially with supplements, including omega 3 fatty acids or fatty fish like salmon — as one benefit of breastfeeding. Immunity is another often-cited benefit.

Williamson, 37, breastfed her two children — Grayson, 7, for 15 months, and JoGina, 5, for two years.

“I didn’t want them to have formula,” she said. “I wanted them to have as much immunity as possible.”

She nursed JoGina longer because she was producing an excess amount of milk and she began donating milk for a premature-born baby whose mother could not breastfeed.

Williamson, who uses a cover-up, said she breastfed her babies anywhere, even at church. She had one uncomfortable experience — not for her, but for a young man who happened to walk into the choir room to where she had retreated when her baby became fussy. Alone with her baby, she didn’t cover up.

“He was just kind of stunned,” she said, “and he walked out.”

Williamson was impressed when she was nursing her baby in a store and a mother came over to her and began teaching her own children about what breastfeeding a baby is all about.

She said she can’t understand why anyone would be disgusted by seeing a mother nurse a baby.

“To me, disgust is a man-made formula going into a child,” Williamson said.